Here’s the brightest TV news from the last couple of weeks: Luther is coming back.

The BBC America series, which stars Idris Elba (top) as brooding British detective John Luther, is filming four new episodes next year.

This is very good news, because the first four Luther seasons, with a total of just 16 episodes, have been consistently superior TV.

They don’t let any cop on TV these days unless he or she is severely damaged, as you’ve probably noticed, but Luther has turned inner chaos into an art form.

He solves cases pretty consistently. He also does it his way, and he tends to end up walking the street looking troubled rather than hoisting a pint in celebration with his mates.

In fact, you could say he rarely plays well with others in any situation.

And that brings us to a couple of points it would be really nice for creator/writer Neil Cross to keep in mind as he crafts Season 5.

Wilson’s Alice Morgan (right), a regular presence in the first three seasons, was the perfect counterpart to Luther.

She was the consummate crook. He was the consummate guy who catches crooks. Except he couldn’t catch her.

So they became a team, in their own twisted way, and it was delicious to watch. On the surface, he was wracked with doubt, and she was swimming in confidence. Then every so often there’d be a little hint that maybe things weren’t quite that clear-cut.

The dance was wonderful, thanks in part to the fact both Elba and Wilson are terrific actors. Its absence left a hole in the fourth season, and its return would fill that hole right back up for Season 5.

Yes, Alice seemed to walk out of the show at the end of Season 3. There are ways to write around that.

Yes, Wilson now has a full-time gig on The Affair over at Showtime. There have to be ways around that, too.

We want Alice.

?Don’t let Luther get Sherlocked

Sherlock, another first-rate Brit series with a lead actor who’s booked through 2035, returned for its own long-awaited fourth season this past January and it was, well, disappointing.  

For want of a better term, Sherlock got silly. It had always had quirky humor, but this past series seemed to be comprised almost entirely of quirks, with the Sherlock and the detective parts often feeling rather marginal.  

It’s not an accident that both the audience and the reverence of critics measurably dropped.

Now, while star Benedict Cumberbatch is signed for a fifth Sherlock series and the creators reportedly have sketched it out, no one has pulled the trigger on actually producing it.

If they can get back to where they once belonged, then we viewers can’t wait. If they’re still going walkabout, better they take some time to think it over.

In any case, while viewers were less enchanted with the fourth season of Luther than with the previous three, there’s no indication the show has gone off the rails.

Sherlock just reminds us that even a solid show sometimes can. Let’s hope Luther doesn’t.